Laura Smith Borrman: Calm Mom Voice

Using the ‘calm mom voice’ is tough in stressful situations – like when a giant tree falls right in front of you and the kids. Laura Smith Borrman has this Perspective.

I’ve had to use it too often over the last few years. The “calm mom” voice.  It’s the forced-zen quality I inject into my tone when on the inside I’m terrified, but have to show my kids things will be okay.

It happened a couple years ago when wildfire blocked our passage across the Carquinez Bridge and we had to turn around against traffic.

It happened when the daytime skies blazed orange in the Bay Area, the air thick with smoke, and we were already stuck inside for Zoom school.

And it happened recently when a three-story-tall tree crashed down in front of our car as we drove to taekwondo. The dreary weather had made it hard for us to leave the house in the first place. But I was insistent that we keep our commitments. When that tree fell, we scrapped the plan and returned home to shelter from hurricane-level winds.

Before I became a parent, I thought my natural state as a mother would be calm. I was certain I’d handle things in stride and be the even-tempered person I’d always been. What no one really said - or maybe what I just didn’t get - is that it all changes once you have a child. That sometimes you have to act calm when you’re not. And it’s because you suddenly see the world through more than one set of eyes.

You feel optimism for who these kids can become and terror when faced with something that could halt that. A new filter has sprung up: you have to interpret the world for someone else in a way that empowers and equips them rather than paralyzes them. And you feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility.

When the tree fell, I fought all these sensations at once. Keep the kids safe, I thought, and keep your cool. If you seem scared, they will be, too. Just focus, adopt the meditative voice, and safely relocate. This car is full of potential. This is not the moment it all ends.

Sometimes the talk that’s really meant to keep my children calm does something else - it soothes me, too, as I start to believe what I’m saying.

With a Perspective, I’m Laura Smith Borrman.

Laura Smith Borrman is a writer and baker living in Oakland with her husband and two kids.